Feeling like you're constantly running out of time and missing out on what truly matters? In today's episode of I explore the concept of 'time debt' — living beyond your means when it comes to scheduling and commitments. Learn how to recognize if you are overbooked and overcommitted, the symptoms of time debt such as stress and lack of sleep, and practical solutions to manage your time efficiently. I'll explain the importance of a time audit, accurate time estimation, and effective planning methods that will put you back in control of your schedule. 

In this episode, I cover:

• Understanding Time Debt: The Financial Analogy
• Signs You're Living Outside Your Time Means
• Solutions: How to Fix Your Time Budget
• Practical Tools: Time Audit and Estimation

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FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Megan: 1:46 

Are you living outside your means when it comes to your time? Well, in today's episode here on Work-Life Harmony, I'm going to be breaking down for you how you can know if you might be. And then, number two, most importantly, what can you do about it? Welcome to the Work-Life Harmony podcast. Guess what? You don't have to feel constantly overwhelmed, exhausted and stressed out. There is another way. When you have the right systems and tools to plan and manage your time, you can live a life of harmony. If you're ready to stop feeling overwhelmed, this is the show for you. Hi there, welcome back to Work-Life Harmony.

Megan: 2:26 

Today, I want to really talk about a different way of thinking about our time, to help us be a lot more realistic with it All. Right, now I'm going to be using a lot of relationships with money, because I think it's the best way to paint this picture here for you. So I'm sure you are likely heard the phrase of saying someone is living outside their means, right, when we're talking about finances. And what we're saying when we, you know, we say that, oh, someone's living outside their means, what we're saying is they are spending more money than money that is coming in, which ultimately means they're going into debt. Now, what's irrelevant in that conversation is it doesn't matter if this is someone who's making a ton of money or someone who's making very little money. It is possible for absolutely anybody to live outside of their means if they continue to spend more money than they have right. So what happens in this situation is a person goes into debt. Now, when it comes to money, it's very easy for us to track that because it's a very tangible thing to look at. Easy for us to track that because it's a very tangible thing to look at. Maybe it's racking up debt on a credit card and you get a bill that clearly shows you every month hey, this is how in debt you are. And so we can have a lot of awareness when it comes to recognizing if we're living outside of our means financially.

Megan: 3:50 

But here's the truth the vast majority of people today are living outside of their time means as well, meaning they are getting overbooked, overscheduled, overcommitted, multitasking. They're trying to do far more things than what they actually have available in their calendar in the reality of their life. But the reason why this is happening and people don't have the awareness of it is because we don't get a bill in the mail every month that says hey, megan, you tried to get 2,000 hours of stuff done this month, but you only had 1,000 available. Therefore, you are trying to live outside of your time needs. It's very hard to touch, feel and see, which is why people oftentimes are not aware of the fact that they're living outside of their time means. Usually, we have awareness.

Megan: 4:57 

If we're living outside of our financial means right Now, what does it look like if we're living outside of our means when it comes to time? What does time debt look like? Well, if this sounds like you, this may be a sign that you are living outside of your time needs. So when someone is in debt with their time, they are usually very stressed and strung out. They are very overwhelmed with a task list that doesn't seem to end. Kind of think of that game of whack-a-mole where you check one off but three new ones pop up. Right, if that feels like you, you're like yes, that is my never-ending life. Oftentimes it's coupled with lack of sleep for two different reasons, one just being they're staying up later or waking up earlier to try and get more hours in the day to get stuff done, or they're not sleeping well, they're waking up in the middle of the night because of the overwhelm. If you've ever had that 2 am mental list-making session, right, that's probably because you're living outside your means when it comes to your time. Maybe you are someone that is perpetually late, or the tasks that you are working on are either just getting done at the last minute or being done late, and perhaps it's manifesting for you by things falling through the cracks. All these things that you wanted to get done are not getting done. Now, the final subtle way that time debt can manifest itself for you is that you feel further and further behind connected, like you are moving farther away from the things, the people, et cetera, that bring you the most joy. You feel like your day is in service to your task list and there is no time for you to do the things that fill you up right. So time debt can look a lot of different ways.

Megan: 6:53 

Now, the good news is, we can fix this, but what it's going to require is for you to have actual awareness of your time budget, meaning how much time do you actually have available to do stuff and how many things are you trying to fit into this? You trying to fit into this? So let's talk about again what's the money solution for living outside your means. When it comes to money, it's very easy to do this. What we can do is track how are we spending our money what's going out versus what's coming in and then we can clearly see where the disconnect is right, and then we are in a position to make decisions about whatever changes that we want to make. Now, when it comes to our time, when we're trying to track the inputs and the outputs, there are two things that you can start doing today to help you kind of see that awareness. Start seeing that bill, if you will. That comes in every week or every month as it relates to our time.

Megan: 7:56 

So the first tool that you can use is a time audit. Now, this is exactly where I start people inside of the top program, because you need to have awareness of how you're spending your time. Doing a time audit is really really easy. You don't have to get a new tool or an app to do it. If you're using a paper planner, you can just use a blank page there or just even a notebook. What you want to do is over the course and you want to do this during a normal week. You don't want to pick, like the week that's the most jam-packed or the week that you're on vacation, just say, yep, here's a normal seven days, and you don't have to wait to start on a Monday either. You can start it at any time, and what you want to do is actually write down about every hour, check-in and write down how are you spending your time.

Megan: 8:40 

Now, you don't have to get too granular with this. What we're looking for, what are the key activities and or roles that you are serving? Right, maybe you just spent an hour taking care of family members. Maybe you just spent an hour working on a report. Maybe you spent five hours of your day in meetings. Okay, what we're looking for is just real, the reality of where is your time going, and it will include things. Maybe you just, you know, sat down and looked at Instagram reels for 30 minutes. Be honest about it. There's no shame in this. It's just we need to see where it's going.

Megan: 9:12 

Now, once we know that information, usually by day three of a time audit, light bulbs are going off for people and they're like, oh my gosh. Now I know why I'm so overwhelmed. I had no idea that I had this much time already spoken for Now when it comes to then. So that's kind of the tracking, the budgeting side. Now we have to figure out how much time do we have available, how long are things going to take, and this is where really getting good at learning how to estimate is going to be a skill you must learn, because we tend to think things are always going to take a lot less time than they do Just thinking about money when we think, oh, it won't cost that much, and then, by the time we start doing all the pieces and thinking about money when we think, oh, it won't cost that much, and then by the time we start doing all the pieces and parts of it, now we've spent way more than we needed to or wanted to. Well, the same can be true with our time, and so this is why those are two key skills that I always teach all of my students when we are learning how to master our time and calendar is we need to have the realistic view of how we're spending our time today, and we need to have great awareness of how long things take, because when we know how much of our time is already accounted for for the things that we need to do, and we know how long these things take. Now we get to back into what's left. How much time is left Now?

Megan: 10:40 

Anytime I get asked and this tends to come up on my live monthly coaching calls with my students there would usually be someone who would say hey, megan, and it's asked in a lot of sneaky ways. But basically what they're asking is how can I get more time? So it'll be things like ah, I haven't had time to work on this goal in the last three weeks. Any suggestions on that? Yeah, and my answer is always saying do you even have the time? It would be like somebody going to a financial advisor and saying hey, I keep running up debt on my credit card. Do you have any advice on how I could start saving for a vacation? Well, there's going to have to be a trade-off right. It means you're going to have to stop spending money on one thing in order to spend that money saving elsewhere. And the same is true with our time. If you are not finding the time to spend it on things that you want to do, it means you're going to have to stop spending it somewhere else. Now, this may not be the answer that you wanted to hear, because people were all looking for the easy button, right, and there's so many people out there trying to share time hacks I hate the word hack Like, oh yeah, I'm going to show you how you can get 16 hours of stuff done in only seven Friends. The math is not possible. Time is finite, and so the sooner you learn how to manage your own time budget and live within your time means, the more freeing it will become.

Megan: 12:10 

When I teach planning, I teach four levels of planning. I teach weekly planning, monthly planning, quarterly planning and annual planning. Now, annual planning obviously is something that I only do once a year, and I only teach this once a year, and what's really powerful about this annual planning process is that it's almost like sitting down and planning a budget for the year with your finances. We actually do the same thing with our calendar. We actually do the same thing with our calendar. We look at it from that 30,000 foot view to say what's already spoken for, where do I know I already have to spend my time for this year, and then what are things I want to achieve this year? But then we go through a very pragmatic step-by-step system to put a plan or a time budget, if you will, in place that supports your dreams for the year, and this is exactly what I'm going to be covering at my live Planopalooza event.

Megan: 13:17 

So, at the time this podcast airs, you are right now are able to go grab an early bird ticket for this event. It is two live days with me in October and I'm doing a bonus a couple days after to our live Q&A. So I'm going to be walking you through the entire annual planning process. You also get the annual planning guide digital workbook with your ticket. It's over 100 pages. You'll have everything you need to do your annual planning guide digital workbook with your ticket. It's over 100 pages. You'll have everything you need to do your annual planning with me, and this year I'm bringing six powerful guest experts that have contributed additional trainings for you that you will have at your disposal to listen to and watch whenever it fits your schedule. So right now, for the month of August, you can grab this ticket for only $47. And the icing on the cake is you get all the recordings as well. So make sure you don't miss out on this.

Megan: 14:18 

Head over to megansumrallcom forward slash plan, because if you are someone that is currently living outside your means when it comes to your time.

Megan: 14:27 

This way of planning ahead for 2025 is going to completely change your life and it's going to start to get you back in control of your time again.

Megan: 14:43 

Getting on top of all things time management, management, organization and productivity doesn't have to stop just because this episode is over. If you are feeling overwhelmed, your calendar's out of control or you're just running in a race that will never end in terms of your to-do list, I have great news for you. I have an app in both the app store and Google Play called the Pink Bee, and it is chock full of small but incredibly powerful trainings to help you get out of overwhelm. It includes my signature Ditch the Overwhelm training and introduction to my time management framework, built specifically for women. In addition, you get access to my Epic One Notebook Challenge and some tips and tricks on how to get your phone organized to minimize distractions. All of that is available for you right inside the Pink Bee app. So open up either your app store or Google Play, do a search on the word the Pink Bee all one word and download the app to get started today.